Setting up UOB SimpleInvest from next month onwards

We managed to send our son to preschool on Fri as he is mostly recovered from his cold and cough. It was good to have a break in the morning for us to catch up on our household chores and work. My wife had her farewell lunch and virtual send-off as she wrapped up about 10 years of service in her current division at the same bank. She has worked in 3 cities across 2 countries and made plenty of connections along the way. It’s a nice way to end her time there as she moves on to a new division at the same bank to do a different kind of work. The new job will be more demanding and interesting so I’m hoping she can adjust to the new role over time.

Anyway, the new cash buffer I have built up for investing by transferring our overseas cash here and cashing out some of our crypto gains has given me more flexibility when organising our monthly investment plans. Other than increasing the automated funds transfers (dollar-cost averaging approach) into our robo-advisor accounts, OCBC Blue Chip Investment Plan (BCIP) and POSB Invest-Saver, I have been considering setting up UOB SimpleInvest. Where the underlying financial assets of our robo-advisor accounts, OCBC BCIP and POSB Invest-Saver are ETFs, the underlying financial asset of UOB SimpleInvest is funds.

I mean, it’s all about what type of stocks and bonds are being held ultimately by the ETFs and funds but they are just packaged differently. The solutions (3 options) offered by UOB SimpleInvest are straightforward and I have selected regular dividends (to be reinvested) and capturing long-term growth opportunities. The monthly transfers into these UOB SimpleInvest funds are automated on different dates from OCBC BCIP and POSB Invest-Saver. Just to spread the various investments throughout the month.

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UOB SimpleInvest forms part of my basic investing strategy where I dollar-cost average into ETFs (and now funds) every month. It’s my long-term hedge against volatility in the markets and underperformance in my manual selection of stocks. The returns are not high but decent when taking into account the minimal effort approach of automated funds transfers (fixed amounts on certain dates). This set and forget component of my investment portfolio has served me well in times of bear markets and recessions.

By my calculation, about a third of my savings from next month onwards will flow into such automated investments. Leaving me with a third of it for manual investments where I try to buy into stocks & cryptos for outperformance of ETFs & funds. And the remaining third for spending on expenses such as rent/mortgage, groceries and dining. Any remaining cash leftover at the end of every month will be kept as cash savings.

This increased utilisation of my cash balance for investing going forward is to ensure I don’t end up building up such a large cash balance over time anymore. It has been dragging down my investment portfolio returns and I’m hoping to address this issue now that I will be using up most of my cash for the remaining private property purchase downpayment. Running a low cash balance has its risks and it hinges a lot on us not losing our jobs. But I will do what I can to make it work.